Messenger - Vol. 1, No. 1, Page 11
Fall 1991
Christie's auction to aid art conservation
Each time the auctioneer's gavel falls the evening of Oct. 10 at
New York City's famed Christie's auction house, the future of art
conservation students at the University of Delaware will be enhanced.
That's the date of an international benefit to fund fellowships
for students in the new doctoral program in art conservation at the
University of Delaware.
The fellowships will be named for the late Belgian conservator
Paul Coremans, who championed interdisciplinary research in art
conservation and encouraged "the art historical lamb to dwell with
the scientific wolf."
Objects to be auctioned have all been donated and they range from
a 15th-century Spanish altarpiece to a 50 B.C. Indian sandstone
sculpture, from a Federal dining table to British silver and Chinese
glass vases.
Donated works by Salvador Dali, Roy Lichtenstein, Georges
Rouault, Ben Shahn and John Sloan will be among the art pieces to be
auctioned. The highest bidder also can acquire a "behind-the-scenes"
tour at several museums across the country, including the J. Paul
Getty Museum in California, New York City's Museum of Modern Art and
the Yale Center for British Art. And, conservationists have donated
their time for private consultations on the condition of paintings,
sculpture, furniture, photographs and collections.
Caroline K. Keck, an art conservator who has been instrumental in
founding two master's degree programs in the field, donated funds to
sponsor the auction.
Offering the first Ph.D. in art conservation research in North
America, the Delaware department trains graduate students in the
conservation of paintings, decorative and ethnographic objects,
furniture, textiles, photographs and works of art on paper. Students
may study mechanisms of bronze corrosion, history of technology,
preservation of natural history collections, stone consolidation,
authenticity and provenance studies and the safe removal of
discoloring coatings from paintings and painted artifacts.
Graduates of the program work in museum research laboratories,
teach in existing master's degree programs and offer courses in
technical examination of art and artifacts to art historians and
archaeologists.